As the trial of Ratko Mladic continues at the Hague, a former interpreter with UN’s military observers conveys the allegations by representatives of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, who said that they were not responsible for the death and wounding of civilians at Markale market place in Sarajevo.
Milorad Batinic described a meeting between international military observers and VRS officer Marko Lugonja, who told them on the basis of a TV recording made on the crime scene at the market “two or three hours” after the explosion on February 5, 1994: “I am convinced that this thing was staged”.
“He said: ‘My service recorded everything and said what happened… Look at those two men, running away from the crime scene. That is suspicious. Look, he said, here is a plastic leg. Where did the leg come from? There is no body?… Look at those pyramids of potatoes on the stalls – not one single potato fell down. Look at the bottles on the stalls – not one of them is broken, not one of them fell down’,” Mladic’s Defence witness said, quoting Lugonja’s words.
He said that Lugonja suggested to UN observers that the bodies had been brought to the market place from elsewhere.
According to the witness, Lugonja said that, prior to the explosion the VRS intelligence service “determined that no bodies, which were kept in the Kosevo morgue, had been buried over the past seven days”.
“Our service intercepted a conversation between two ambulance drivers on the Muslim side. It could clearly be heard that one of them told the other, in a form of a ciphertext: “Bring me some more icicles’,” the witness said, conveying Lugonja’s words.
According to Batinic’s testimony, lieutenant colonel Lugonja said that “the number of killed and wounded persons was too big for one grenade”, expressing suspicion that the VRS could have done it, because “it is not in our interest at all”.
The indictment against Mladic, former Commander of VRS, charges him with having terrorised civilians in Sarajevo by conducting artillery and sniper attacks. It alleged that a mine-thrower grenade, which was fired from Serb positions on February 5, 1994, killed 66 and wounded about 140 citizens at Markale.
Batinic, who was member of VRS prior to becoming an interpreter with the UN, said that military observers were “semi-free” after having been captured by the Serbian Army in the spring and summer of 1995 in an
attempt to prevent NATO’s airstrikes.
The witness said that “their movement was restricted to the house”, in which they had lived prior to being captured, “and the yard around the house”, adding that a guard “kept an automatic rifle inside the house” and that the rifle “was accessible to everybody”.
According to the witness’ testimony, the captured observers could have taken the rifle, “but they did not do it, because they knew that nothing would happen to them.”
“The guard was there primarily to protect them from the locals,” Batinic said.
The indictment charges Mladic with having taken hundreds of “blue helmets” hostage. The VRS then exposed them as “human shield” from NATO airplanes by tying them next to their buildings, which were NATO targets.
Batinic said that the VRS once found gunpowder and grenade igniters in oxygen bottles, which were supposed to be sent to the Kosevo hospital.
Mladic’s Defence illustrated his allegations by playing a TV report.
The witness said that numerous civilians, including his uncle, who was a Croat, was killed in snipe and artillery fire opened from the Muslim side targeting Grbavica. As he said, “some policemen” took another cousin of his away from Sarajevo. He said that his body was exhumed in 1998.
The cross-examination of Defence witness Batinic, which began today, is due to continue tomorrow, June 13.
Mladic is also charged with genocide in Srebrenica and the persecution of Muslims and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, which reached the scale of genocide in seven municipalities, in the period from 1992 to 1995.
